War of Thorns and Shattered Spears
by Ihsan997
Summary: The War of the Thorns as seen by the foot soldiers fighting it. In an unjust war, those on the ground try to make sense of the revenge and tragedy driving their leaders. Includes an addendum to the Banshee Queen's cruelty in Darkshore. 6 chapters
1. Building Up

**A/N: this is a sort of tribute to Delaryn Summermoon, whose brief story felt so tragic. My initial muse was, unintentionally, my fellow FF writer and deviant Aranya Ver'Sarn, whose profile (same name) can be found here. Check out her short story "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE" over on Deviant Art to see what initially spurred me to start writing this.**

Red and black banners waved on the hill, surrounded by hundreds - maybe even thousands - of troops. Spiked pauldrons and horned helmets marked the sea of winded soldiers, punctuated by the tips of spears and axes that waved back and forth to the rhythm of the war drums. The damp branches of pine trees dripped with the tears of the grey clouds, causing the fires of their torches to steam in a promise of what was to come should they succeed.

In the last foothills of Darkshore, the mass of grunts, raiders, and other warriors all stood at attention. Tired from the march across a quarter of the continent, their weary eyes looked to the top of the final hill before Darkshore's descent to the coast. Among the throngs of hundreds of shock troopers, two pairs of points ears bobbed in a crowd of strangers. One of them in particular grew impatient.

A pair of infantry, both with shaved heads, shifted their weight, though the smaller of the two grumbled about the wait. "They must be alerted to our position by now," a medium blue skinned woman whispered to her companion. The barbed javelins she carried in a case on her back were stained with blood that had long since dried out, adding to her anxiety.

The only familiar face to her was a similarly colored man resting his palms on a dark iron club. He looked down to her even when she didn't return his gaze, studying the anxiety in her angular face.

"Saurfang wouldn't steer us wrong," he said in a voice far too soft in comparison to his tank-like visage. His sharp-featured friend, however, wasn't entirely listening.

"We can't wait here forever. If we get told to call of the charge, there's gonna be-"

"Fon, not here," the man holding a massive club pleaded quietly.

A few of the other soldiers began to look around, clambering over each other to see the hill. Ukasha, a silent Grimtotem man well known to them both had unfortunately stood at an angle that blocked many of those behind him. The impatient javelineer started to push her fellow tribesman urgently. "Rush, see what it is, you fool. Don't miss whatever's happening!"

Silently forgiving her for her abrasive nature, he stretched up straight to peek over the hump on the back of Ukasha's neck. Atop the hill, the leader of their assault hurried to the top, dealing swift orders to his officers as the grunts in the front row of the infantry block knelt and saluted.

Rush slouched again as Fon tried to stand on her toes. "The High Overlord be here. He looks like he be in a rush." He paused for a second when she rolled her big eyes at him. "I swear that wasn't a pun."

"Whatever. I really be hoping-"

Saurfang's voice boomed over the hill, drowning them both out and even getting a rise out of Ukasha, who never seemed to react to anything. Every single one of the thousand-odd troops became mute at that moment, standing at attention to the call of a voice which reached all the way to the last row.

"The time for talk has passed; the time to act overtakes us," Saurfang said thunderously. What seemed to be his normal speaking voice carried over the crowd without effort. "Our orders have arrived: we are to take Lor'Danil and secure its port." Cheers began to spread prematurely among the eager and anxious, but Saurfang slowly lifted a single palm. The movement didn't quite match the persona of an old soldier of many battles, but the desired effect took place. Like the volume control on a goblin music machine, the noise of the crowd decreased lower the higher the old soldier raised his hand, and by the time silence had dominated the hill again, he was already speaking.

"Do not harm the civilians; anyone not in a uniform or carrying a weapon is to be left alone." As if impressing upon them all how strongly he felt, Saurfang paused for a few seconds despite the urgent look on his face before continuing. "Do not allow the combatants to survive if they refuse to lay down their arms...but if they do, then remember the value of prisoners."

Armor clinking as he raised his axe, the old soldier led every single fighter lined up to mimic him. "Today, we take Lor'Danil for the Horde!"

Old Saurfang's voice carried over the heads of the crowd, causing many to visibly jump. The volume finally increased in his voice, practically booming over them all and being met with battle cries in kind. Weapons rattled and drums were beaten, pounding out of sync with the boots on the ground, but nobody noticed. As soon as Saurfang pointed over the last of the hills, the mass of infantry charged, led by a handful of mounted raiders bearing battle standards.

The two shaven adventurers marched in the middle of the infantry block, their nerves buzzing with excitement from their compatriots around them. The curved rooftops of the city poked over the horizon, warning of the coming clash. Horde skirmishers swept the edge of the woods and beyond, screening the infantry from enemy archers and shooters, adding to the eerie calm as the hundreds of troops broke the tree line.

"Too quiet equals an ambush with these wood elfies," Fon'kei whispered just as most of the infantry blocks had left forest cover.

Cruel in its sense of humor, the universe played a particularly mean practical joke just as she spoke. The first arrows dinged off of a grunt's armor in the same microsecond, causing the back rows of troops to come to a half within the forest. The young man from their tribe raised his head to sound the alarm, only to be felled by arrows to the head in mid sentence.

"Sneak attack!" an orc grunt net to him cried in his stead.

A wave of treants rose from the ground at the very front of the infantry rows, beyond the tree line. Boxed in, the front hundred or so soldiers attacked their woody foes, unmindful of the conflict behind them. Row after row of infantry toward the back spun around to find animal-form druids and hidden archers besieging them, and Ral'rush saw at least one row of a Horde infantry square fall to the ambush.

People began to push and shove to escape the forest, angering Fon'kei as she pushed back. "Cowards!" she yelled at both sides as she forced her way in the opposite direction of the more startled grunts. The front lines facing down the treants were entirely out of her field of vision.

Ral'rush followed her, struggling to keep up. When surrounded by so many allies, he couldn't hope to charge into the enemy and shock them, and all he could do was step over bodies and hedges as he followed her back into the woods. A handful of brave souls noticed and turned around, joining them without even needing an order from a ranking officer. The handful transformed into a dozen, and then a few, swelling into a few ranks of fighters passing by their injured or less foolhardy brethren. Arrows pelted the ground in front of them, but Fon merely ran even faster when seeing them, unintentionally and unknowingly leading a counter charge.

The first rustle of leaves above her alerted to the presence of an archer nearly on top of her, and Fon shuffled out of the way of another shot. Arching her back, she swung a javelin in a quarter circle, catching her attacker by surprise. At the same moment that her projectile brought the archer to the ground, a sentinel leapt from the bushes at her only to be stopped in mid swing by a random goblin running at full speed with a spear.

There was no time to think, no time to plan, no time to weigh odds. Unlike the orderly clashing of ranks against the treants, the fight at the tree line was intense, chaotic, and vicious. Dirt and tree branches were kicked up in the air as blood sprayed and members on both sides fell. Fon expended all of her javelins, was pushed into retrieving them, and eventually degenerated to stealing the glaives from dead elves and throwing those too. The decisive end came when Rush and a bear druid ran at each other head on, the loud crack of his club against the bear-elf's skull ringing in everyone's ears.

The sound sent the Horde fighters into a frenzy, charging straight into the enemy ranks and firing everything they had at the canopy until daylight broke through due to all the destroyed tree branches. The remaining elves fled, pursued into the forest by thirty or so goblins wielding spears and hollering as if they were high on drugs. A preliminary cheer broke out as the injured among the night elves were executed, but Fon was already running to the front lines.

"Slow down!" Rush called after her, painfully tearing his eyes away from the spoils of war as he tried to catch up with her.

Across multiple ranks of clambering troops, she dashed, grunting in disappointment when she found nothing but splinters in place of the treants. As opposed to the rear of the infantry block where dozens had died, the front lines were relatively successful, and she counted only two dead and a handful of injuries.

Even Saurfang had jumped in with his soldiers on the front lines, and he appeared mildly irritated at the temporary setback. "Report anyone celebrating prematurely and give me their names," the old soldier told one of his officers. He turned to the ranks of infantry and stared at them hard while wiping the tree sap off of his blade. "This isn't even the beginning. Press on!"


	2. Ghostfaced Killer

Amid the din and clash of metal, two figures stood on a rock and watched. Bodies writhed and push in a mass of armor and blood, rushing forward and falling back in a tedious game of cat and mouse. Mud, debris, and detritus marked the damp grass of northern Darkshore, threatening any adventurer unfortunate enough to slip and fall. Arrows and javelins fell in wide arcs to the ground, striking down friend and foe alike in an unfair gamble of life and death on an already hazardous shore. The War of Thorns promised to go out with a bang, not a whimper.

Blue and gold fought hard against red and black, pushing back the tide of horns and tusks like a damaged wall that still remained standing. A weathered soldier furrowed his brow, shaking his head as he silently lamented losses which could have been avoided. He rubbed his grey stubble with a calloused hand, watching the endless ranks of young people fall to enemy glaives and spears in the last, hard push before the end of a figurative marathon. High Overlord Saurfang had seen enough.

"Too many brave souls are falling needlessly," the old soldier said in an almost unnaturally deep voice. His younger counterpart remained mercifully quiet, actually listening to what he had to say rather than clambering for recognition. Uninterrupted, he was able to hear his own thoughts for the first time in many weeks. "It doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to end with the funeral of so many of our best and most loyal. There's a way to win this...a way that allows for those soldiers down there to return to their families."

While his eyes remained ever focused on the movement of troops below them, he inclined his head toward his companion at the time. Following his lead, the dark purple woman observed as well, yet the twitch of one long ear implied that Sourfang's words were still heard.

As the Alliance forces amassed within the makeshift ramparts and anti-cavalry spikes, the orc veteran unfurled a plan he hoped could reduce losses in both sides. The war of aggression was dragging on longer than planned.

"Lor'Danil has mustered significant reinforcements on its shore. Enough to drive us back," Saurfang said quietly in a hum of a voice. "One swift strike and we can end this threat!"

Turning to his tusked companion, he laid a fist hard on the woman's singular shoulder pauldron. The quiet assassin he'd been sent fidgeted uncomfortably under the leather armor Saurfang had forced her to wear. That reticence made the old soldier uneasy, but the assassin's acceptance of the order redeemed her from at least one flaw. Two beady red eyes met Saurfang's, and he knew he had her attention.

"Your friends will break through their lines, and you will slay the commander of enemy forces at the flight point, near the docks. Without leadership, this force will crumble."

Though a measure of immature resistance remained in those beady eyes, the jungle troll female nodded and responded despite the obvious discomfort with speaking. There may have been hope for her yet.

"I do it, High Overlord," the she replied in a raspy voice.

Saurfang kept his fist on the quiet killer's shoulder for another second before removing it, but he continued to meet his subordinate's gaze. Though he'd only recently been sent the woman on loan, he could read personalities well enough to smell insubordination from a distance.

"Nehreneh, heed my words," the old soldier said sternly. "Warchief Sylvanas requested you from your former commander based on a reputation. You were once the latter's loyal soldier; the Warchief has placed you under my command for now. I assume that you understand how to take orders."

When dark purple troll nodded with an honest acknowledgement, the orc veteran continued. "Today, you're the Horde's assassin. You have your target, and you understand how to save any allies if time permits. But under no circumstances are you to harm civilians, or to allow harm to come to them. Perhaps that isn't like your normal work, but that's the order I'm giving you today."

Saurfang continued staring at her sternly, unsatisfied with the continued silence. Maybe the reticence he sensed was only to speaking out loud, but he had to be sure. "Do you understand what I've told you?" he asked very directly.

The assassin cleared her throat to speak again. "You command, I obey," Nehreneh replied almost with disinterest.

For a few moments, the two of them stared at each other. Although the jungle troll's red-and-black face and body paint didn't help in terms of discerning her attitude, there was still a lingering doubt in Saurfang's mind. The orc couldn't entirely rule out his own distaste for excessive suffering by the innocent, the taint remained in his view of the minion he'd been sent.

When the surly soldier turned away to leave, Saurfang swung his arm out stiffly. The edge of his hand slammed into the troll's pauldron loud enough for the wood to ding and vibrate against his hand. Nehreneh snorted uncomfortably at the feeling of the wood's padding, and she stopped in her tracks. Saurfang continued to hold his arm out, blocking her in a clear dare for any last minute defiance to make itself known. There was none.

"I know where you're coming from, and what you've been through, and I don't care. I don't want to hear it, and you don't need to retell it. But as sure as right is right and wrong is wrong, you'd best listen to me now.

"Remember the womb that bore you. Remember the arms that held you as a child. Remember whatever you may have once had, and know that you aren't to deny that to any child whose parent doesn't threaten you today. All your tribe lost, all that Alliance adventurers have taken from you - know that it isn't your right to take it away from an innocent. We're here for a proper military conflict and nothing more.

"Do you understand what I've told you?"

Even in such opaque, concealing eyes, Saurfang could have sworn that he'd seen defiance. At what, he could not say for such a stubborn cur, and he hoped that all he was seeing was the simple competitiveness of a person from a devastated tribe. Still, he'd dealt with enough new recruits in his day, and he knew from experience that he had to push the woman to see what her temperament was made of.

A blank, expressionless stare continued to meet his through those beady red eyes. All Saurfang could tell was that he was either dealing with a professional who never questioned orders, or a recalcitrant upstart who'd probably end up in the brig at some point.

"You command, I obey," she repeated.

Making his skepticism known on his face, Saurfang impressed his challenge upon the barely responsive assassin even after letting his arm drop. Firmly under the overlord's command, the Shatterspear woman nodded as if the gesture were a peace offering before taking her leave. Saurfang watched her disappear among the sea of bodies, still skeptical as to whether his orders would be followed precisely or not. He'd seen enough family members bereaved of one another that day; he'd most certainly check, once the dust was settled, on what every member of personnel under his oversight had done.


	3. Melee Mayhem

Fon'kei and Ral'rush both had a newfound respect for the night elves.

Both of them had participated in raids on various Alliance cities. They'd faced the best, the worst, the in between, and the unconventional across battlegrounds and contested zones alongside the warband which had given them their first taste of battle. They'd even fought the silvery-eyed fey creatures occupying the north of the continent, but never had they seen anything like what they faced in Lor'Danil.

Street after street, path after path, the Horde forces had to spend blood, sweat, and tears for every inch of territory they gained. Cramped in between the houses, hundreds of soldiers on both sides pushed, fighting in cramped quarters and improvising new ways to end each other's lives when unable to full commit to any exchange of blades. Arrows fell at random and without true aim, friendly fire claimed nearly half of the deaths, and brave troops on both sides slipped and fell in the muddy, bloody streets and met unfairly miserable ends before they could even get back up again.

Though lightly armored, Fon knew how to use a shield, and she'd grabbed one from the corpse of a comrade so mangled that she couldn't even tell what color the body was anymore. A handful of orcs had formed an impromptu shield wall alongside her and they all held formation with spears they'd pillaged from enemy weapon racks. The Main Street of Lor'Danil was narrow, much more so than the design of orc or human cities, and a wall of only eight of them were able to push down the street toward the coastline while deflecting enemy fire. Rush mixed in with the ranks of infantry behind them, swinging his club over the tops of their heads and bludgeoning any elf or other Alliance soldier foolish enough to approach their shield wall.

Amidst the desperation and paranoia of urban warfare, they tried to find a semblance of strategy. "I can see the roof of their port authority!" Fon yelled over the clash of metal on the next few adjacent streets. "There are reinforcements trickling in down there, we gotta take it!"

A random orc next to her tried to answer. "But look ahead - I see-"

The man choked on his own saliva and exhausted panting, and his parched throat suppressed the rest of his observation. Both sides pushed urgently, but the night elves failed to break the shield wall. A few of them approached with two-handed spears but no shields while others tried to charge in with shields but only short tri-bladed glaives. Both types of sentinel were either wounded with thrusts to their unarmored violet flesh, or they were intimidated into retreating further down the street. When the silver-eyed soldiers turned tail and ran, a mistakenly premature cheer rose from the Horde troops.

"Aha ha, yeah!" Rush laughed while fist bumping a pandaren he didn't even know.

"My brother will quit the Alliance and join us now!" the random awestruck pandaren said.

The gleam of arcanite caught Fon'kei off guard, and shie instinctively flinched. Blue and gold tabards wafted in the howling breeze, and she banged on her stolen shield with her stolen spear when the others were too busy congratulating themselves to notice. "Not just yet! Hey, not just yet!" she shouted, causing the rest of the ad hoc wall of spears to take notice.

Streaming in from the docks, a new column of enemy troops approached. Noticeably smaller in profile than the wispy fey creatures, the newcomers marched slowly and in even step as if they'd practiced marching as much as fighting. High spiked polearms with billhooks on the back glimmered next to shields which seemed impossibly heavy for such small monsters. The polearms themselves seemed unwieldy to use with one hand, but the Alliance tin cans handled them like experts, even when weighed down by ridiculously concealing armor.

"Humans," one of the orcs growled.

Alliance soldiers from an assortment of human nations turned the polearms on their Horde counterparts, but the small hostiles didn't charge. Moving like golems or automatons, the humans marched forward without flinching, displaying an intimidating swagger when refusing to return the Horde battlecry. The rest of the front line charged, forcing Fon to follow suit to avoid breaking rank.

Screams broke out when the first few Horde soldiers died instantly. The humans had ingeniously brought polearms so long that neither the standard Horde spear nor the pilfered elven spears could match their reaching power. Half of the Horde front line died by the time the others realized they couldn't even get within striking distance, and the last few ranks of the infantry rectangle smushed into the narrow street broke formation.

Calls to "fall back" echoed among them, sending them into a backward stampede. The humans didn't swarm them, instead marching at the same even pace and thus putting up an even greater show of strength. A few shots taken by goblin snipers from the rooftops bounced ineffectively off of the long tower shields of the humans, and elven javelins and glaives soon removed the Horde's air cover on that street.

The Horde fell into full retreat on the Main Street, losing all the ground they'd gained and nearly spilling out into the town square near the moonwell. Fon and Rush were the last to retreat, and the former looked angrily upon the advancing enemy line as her mind raced. The Alliance soldiers didn't even have to chase them into open ground; as long as the flight point was secured, more enemy troops could be flown in, and their preemptive attack would be at risk of turning into an embarrassing defeat.

Both trolls watched the impending wave of humans deep toward them. At some point during the melee, Fon had lost her last javelin and Rush had mangled his club, leaving them both only with sidearms. Not content to give up just yet, the latter began to rummage through the wreckage of a night elf hovel which had been broken in half by a catapult launch. There were bodies, old paper, and lots and lots of wood. Every second he spent digging through the corpses and racks of damaged items, the first line of Alliance troops drew nearer, and Fon finally followed him inside.

"We gotta pull back, we gotta figure this out!" she tried telling him, but she stopped short when he tossed a large clump of broken wooden frames aside.

"Look!"

Beneath the body of a sizable Gilnean guard was an unblemished zweihander. The length of the weapon was almost comical, clearly having been sized as a greatsword for a being no smaller than Greymane himself.

The boots of the humans stamped on the ground and sloshed mud across the street, all to the wolflike howl of the wind. Fon scratched her head, skeptical of the elongated weapon's viability. "I dunno, that be more like a polearm than a sword," she said with a careful eye on the few meters between the house and their enemies. "And we be outta time."

Blowing off the wood chips from the blade, Rush had a look of forlorn hope in his eyes. "I'd rather die here than know that I ran," he said in a forced calm. His eyes were almost pleading, as if he were more interested in convincing her than making a statement, but the humans were approaching and robbing either of them of the time to properly think.

The sound of heavy metal boots pushed her to decide. "Better not to die alone," she said, and she grabbed a military flail from the wreckage. The two of them stepped out into the middle of the street to find that the humans had come to a halt and stood in defensive stances. "Yep, they trying to hold us off. We gotta break past them." She looked back behind them to see that some of the grunts had regrouped. "These colors don't run!" she yelled back at them with a tug to her Horde tabard.

Rush rushed at the humans, running straight into a prickly bush of spear tips with hooks on them. Unwavering, the humans waited for him to fall on the tips of their weapons, assured and unafraid. None of them were prepared for the whirlwind attack aimed two meters in front of their shields.

Just before he impaled himself, Rush began to swing the zweihander at their pole weapons. The angle was slightly awkward and felt unnatural, but he'd learned enough swordplay from the Burning Blade orcs in Durotar to know how to aim diagonally. The shafts of the entire first row of opposing polearms were sliced off like butter, leaving ten unarmed humans so complacent that they didn't even visibly react until he'd also cut off the tips of the second row of weapons. The humans in the third row tried to reach across to attack him, but their polearms couldn't reach him, nor could he quite cut the tips off. He did mangle the dangerous parts, though, leaving Fon to clip off the humans' right flank.

With every Alliance soldier unarmed and defending the man to his left, the one on the far right had no shield to protect him and no weapon to strike back with aside from a simple short sword. Fon swung the flail hard and fast, knocking the man out before he could counterattack. Unconscious and prone, he fell to the feet of his fellows and caused those surrounding him to pull out their own short weapons defensively. Though the could hold Fon at bay, they couldn't do the same for her less flexible but larger companion. Rush gripped the ricasso of the greatsword and used a half-swordinf technique, thrusting the great weapon into the eye slits of the human footmen. Two of them died before the others began to cut uselessly against Rush's armor and thick hide, leaving Fon free to swing the flail. She went to town on the second row of them, outright killing a few of them before the entire square backed up and retreated. The third and fourth rows became the first and second as bodies dropped, and the humans began to watch the area behind the two jungle trolls.

"Spirits disgrace us if we take another step back!"

Both of them experienced a minor jump to hear an orc woman's voice, and they were even more surprised to see her launch herself against the first row of shields. She was badly hurt by one of the enemy polearms before swinging a mace at her attackers. Blunt force trauma from both her and Fon broke bones and damaged internal organs right through the heavy Alliance armor, and by the time Rush began breaking and knocking aside polearms with his greatsword again, more of the grunts who'd retreated instead rejoined them.

This time, the fighting was less even as the Horde troops felt a second wind propel them. Stepping over the bodies of their comrades who'd initially been skewered by the humans, they launched a second assault with renewed fervor. Rush waded directly into the sea of silver armor, accepting a few deep stab wounds that his armor didn't stop as he pushed directly into the Alliande infantry square. Short swords sliced into his arms, polearms stabbed him in the legs, but he just roared obscenities in Common and continued methodically swinging for the Alliance weapons and leaving his fellows to avenge his wounds once he'd drawn all aggression to himself and disarmed their adversaries. Fon took more than a few hits as she waded in after him, beating the humans into a pulp inside of their own armor until the flail broke and she stole one of the few unbroken billhooks left. One after another, she pulled down their shields with the long hook she'd appropriated, leaving a gaggle of goblins to swarm over the fleeing humans and stab little knives into the gaps between their plates of armor.

The Main Street of Lor'Danil cleared, the grunts thankfully let their bloodlust overtake their proclivity to prematurely celebrate. As randomly as they'd initially handed together, the hundred or so survivors dispersed, flooding the next few streets. Separate pitched battles which had been taking place on the other sides of the buildings stood at various states of standstill until the surge of grunts from Main Street ran amok through the flanks of remaining Alliance units. Only three figures remained in the gallery of dead humans once the goblin mini-Horde cleared out, leaving Fon to pluck a red and black battle standard and plant it in the muddy ground in the middle of the road.

A bolt of lightning struck, knocking them back and blowing apart the standard. Electricity crackled as a portly figure rose from the smoke. A staff he gripped flowed with a lightning enchantment, and the mottled color of his fur seemed oddly familiar.

Before the two jungle trolls could react, the third member of their remaining band leapt to his feet. The pandaren from earlier stared down what seemed to be a mirror image of himself, minus the magic weapon and with a different colored tabard. "You!" the stranger said in anger.

The Horde pandaren looked to Fon and Rush. "This isn't for your eyes; get to the flight point!" he said urgently.

The two brothers of different factions clashed, sending sparks and wood chips flying as they fought back and forth across the street. Rush moved to help, but Fon tried to pull him the other way. "There are more enemies arriving!" she cried while pointing toward the port authority.

More hippogriffs were landing at the flight point near the city's docks, signaling another influx of hostile targets. Neither of them said anything as they both left the epic family feud to play itself out and ran for the final bridge leading to their target location.


	4. Assassination

Wind riders plummeted to the ground over the docks of Lor'Danil, giving adventurers and civilians alike reason to flee. Even with projectiles falling to the ground, the bodies were an altogether different type of hazard. Wooden planks creaked and splintered under the weight of mounted enemies crashing from above, threatening to destabilize one of the few means of escape if the raining bodies didn't simply crush the fleeing locals.

Two halves of local families broken by the War of the Thorns hid beneath awnings at the now devastated Darkshore port authority, creeping toward the evacuation sites in between volleys of javelins and arrows from both sides. A healer fretted under what remained of the port authority's roof, making the heart-wrenching decision of who among the wounded to devote his time to and who to give up on. A few sentinels and druids set up a makeshift wall of branches and debris to block off the end of the docks, buying time as a tri of hippogriff riders landed.

The scene was one of chaos save the cool demeanor of the commander of the flight point defense. Ariel Stagguard delivered orders swiftly as both able-bodied fighters as well as dock and flight point staff rushed back and forth, working hard to get as many of their people out of there as possible. The guards at the wall of thorns patrolled anxiously, contrasting quite obviously to their commanding officer.

"Bring the children first," Ariel ordered as a hippogriff handler ushered more civilians to the roost of the exhausted animals. "Only a single adult is necessary." On her order, the remaining night elf children who'd made it to the flight point mounted alongside a Gilnean schoolteacher who pushed the hippogriff to its limit, taking off without delay. The commander's attention was only pulled away by the tremors in the thorny wall.

One of the patrolling sentinels ran from the bridge to the mainland, hence the wall, back to Ariel. The startlingly young soldier appeared shaken.

"Commander, the heart of the town has been breached. We can see the conflict right on the other side of the wall."

Ariel looked at her confidently, nodding in an unspoken command for the young sentinel to stand tall. "All you've learned shall be tested here. Hold the wall until we receive orders to push back and retake our city."

"Yes, Commander," the young sentinel replied, not without nervousness, as she returned to the wall. No sooner had she crossed the bridge than had the wall of thorns exploded in magical flame, knocking her and her comrades to the ground. A mage's fireball caused the wall to burn out quickly, and the clanging of boots signaled an assault by Horde grunts. "For the Alliance!" the young sentinel shouted as she climbed to her feet and charged alongside a group of hidden defenders.

The civilians on the docks remained quiet, ducking their heads down and creeping toward the flight point. The field commander was flooded with people begging to be evacuated first, leaving her troops to fend off the attackers.

The fight on the bridge was intense, and few soldiers on either side fell initially. The combatants took heavy damage, battering each other in a microcosm of war of attrition as shields clashed and blades crossed. In the midst of the fighting, a deviation from the Horde frontline pushed through the crowd, like a purple wave in a sea of green. The color of what could have been a Kaldorei emerged from the wall of fel green, striding down the bridge calmly as if the fierce last stand wasn't taking place all around. The first officer under the commander, a veteran of Silverwind Refuge, stepped away from the flight point to keep the pompous newcomer in check. The large upstart wasn't intimidated and continued to stroll right down the middle of the fight as if trying to make a statement. At a snail's pace, his slow movement granted him plenty of time for such a statement.

The first stray soldier in the surrounding battle was a human on loan from Stormwind. The adventurer swung a warhammer as the well-armed Horde soldier only for the striking head of the hammer to be caught in the big, three-fingered hand like a child's punch. Both hammer and and human were dragged to the side, and a swift counterpunch from the tusked man's studded left gauntlet literally cracked the human's cranium.

The second stray Alliance soldier was a local Lor'Danil rogue who stabbed a short sword into the strolling troll's abdomen. Even beneath the war paint covering the purple man, it was clear that the stab wound elicited no outward reaction. The bastard didn't even blink. As comfortably as if he were running his thick fingers over soft leaves on an autumn afternoon, the Horde soldier grabbed the elven rogue by the wrist and twisted, breaking his attacker's arm. The rogue's groan was cut off when the obvious arms warrior pulled the short sword from his own body and pushed it through the rogue's chest from one side to the other.

The third stray soldier was a feral druid who tried to pounce on the Horde warrior. In midair, the catform druid was caught, its claws digging ineffectively into the damp hide. The purple feline bit the purple troll's free hand only for the unflinching invader to shove it further down the druid's throat and block the passage of air. The feral cat choked, suffocating as it thrashed and slashed at the enemy carrying it forward in a manner so relaxed that it couldn't even be described as methodical.

The first officer of the flight point had seen enough, dashing forward before Ariel could stop her. "Put him down!" she growled at the jungle troll with a big cat stuck on his arm. In an almost immature display, the silent Horde soldier pulled his arm out of the feral druid's throat and dropped the motionless body at her feet. A swift battle cry later and she was in the air, meeting a similar fate when her target reached out and grabbed her by the neck before she could slash him with her glaive. She didn't relent even when lifted off of her feet, and when her weapon reached the apex of its swing, a personal catastrophe struck. Heretofore unseen, a second jungle troll broke out from the bridge battle. Leaping even faster than the first officer, she plunged a stolen butterfly sword into the elf's armpit, bringing a swift end to the fourth attacker.

One of the hippogriffs tried to dive bomb the two invaders as the beastwoman maimed the first officer to death. Unlike their unceremonious dispatch of their fellow sentients, they made no attempt on the life of the animals. When the flying creature gripped the big male with its talons, he dug his heels in to the floor of the docks and pulled it to the ground. A pommel strike by the vicious female to its head left it dizzy, and she pushed it out of harm's way as she continued the slow march toward the flight point alone. Upon seeing their fellow easily knocked out and a trail of their masters' bodies behind the invaders, the other flying mounts crouched in defeat, averting their eyes in submissive displays.

Bleeding from rapidly healing wounds, the second stoic Horde invader glanced around at the flight point. She scanned the area as if she were merely browsing socks or another mundane item in a market, unmoved by the continued battle around them. Her own target waited until the right moment to strike, catching her before she or her companion could arm themselves.

"For the Alliance!" Ariel yelled as she burst out of her hiding place behind a dilapidated wall of the former port authority.

Focused and silent, she brought both of her blades down onto one of the damp, dank invaders. Her twin swords cut into the exposed flesh of the male's upper arms, drawing blood and rending flesh. To her chagrin, the jungle troll's face didn't even register an expression. He almost looked like he didn't mind being cut with her swords. Disinterest marked his beady eyes as he regarded her, and she crouched at the ready while waiting for his counterattack. Instead, he merely confused her and broke her concentration.

"Goodbye," he said in heavily accented Low Common.

The female had been watching the brief exchange and had positioned herself perfectly to strike. The butterfly sword came at Ariel's neck so fast that the commander had to strain to dodge, just barely bringing up one of her swords in time to parry a second strike. The two of them growled at each other, preparing for a bladestorm until a fourth voice interrupted.

"She's mine."

The three of them turned to find yet another jungle troll watching them from the railing. She must have climbed up the wooden structure from the ocean, by the looks of her warped body paint, and she didn't even bother wiping away her dark, waterlogged hair. Relatively small for her kind, the woman seemed to have a unique skin tone different from the two other jungle trolls, and as the waifish Horde invader approached, Ariel's eyes widened in a political, if not personal, revelation.

"You didn't kill all of us, witch!" the third jungle troll hissed.

By the time Ariel had refocused on her task of protecting the flight point section of the docks, the smaller troll had already pulled out an axe and a metal rod, flipping the latter around to reveal a war pick on the other side of the head. Without so much as a taunt, she charged. Despite being so short, she hit deceptively hard, and Ariel strained to meet the first blow of the axe. The war pick came down on her undefended side, piercing her pauldron as well as the flesh beneath. She hissed when her opponent yanked and pulled the shoulder armor out of the straps and leathers which held it in place. Refusing to budge, she allowed a measure of her skin to be torn in order to hold her ground, and one of her blades opened a gash on the troll's underarm. She wasn't even sure if the woman noticed given the lack of response save to move in again at the full length of her swing. The troll's axe blade forced her to remain on the defensive on her left side only.

Little by little, Ariel's armor was punctured and mangled by the war pick, leaving her right arm bloodied and bare. In an attempt to favor that side, she swung hard with her left, overextending until the war pick entered her helmet. Caught off guard, she gasped and froze at the sensation of a spike entering her head, wavering and failing to follow up with a counterattack. In a surprising act of mercy, the small troll ended her life in a single blow thereafter, saving her from a slower death.

No sooner had Ariel's body hit the ground than did a shriek catch the assassin's attention. Off to the side, a final group of civilians huddled in the broken walls of what had once been the main building at the docks. Though there were no children, the group all appeared to be defenseless - local denizens of what used to be Lor'Danil. The small Horde assassin stared at them, watching them crawl back against the splintered walls of the building to get away from them, revealing nothing of her intentions in her blank expression. Having once guarded the destroyed wall at the bridge, the young sentinel who'd been patrolling cut down one of the Horde grunts and charged, praying that she'd be able to throw herself in between the civilians and the invaders in time.


	5. The Big Reveal

Blood rushed all the way into the young sentinel's ears as she abandoned the bloodbath on the bridge. With soldiers on both sides finally falling to exhaustion, there was now a higher priority for her defense of the flight point.

The Horde assassin loomed over a group of five or so civilians, the final individuals who hadn't managed to evacuate before the hippogriffs had been scared away. Afraid and cornered, they closed their eyes and hugged one another, pitiful in their acceptance of a cruel fate. Adrenaline pushed the sentinel to leap forward, placing herself in harm's way to keep the beastly monsters away from the townies.

"No!" the young sentinel yelled as she opened another cut on the uncovered part of the male troll's other, less injured arm. Thick blood seeped out as she landed on her feet in front of the trio, but he didn't register any reaction to being hurt again. "Leave them alone!"

Her glaive failed to hit her target the second time; he caught the rim of it between two of the blades and gripped it tightly, maintaining control of her arm. Slipping out of the weapon's strap, she backed away from him to create space for a desperate martial attack. Her entire body spun as she roundhouse kicked him in the face, but his head only moved to the side an inch or two. The muscles of his chin didn't even twitch, and he continued to stare at her with no hint of his motive written into it.

Pain ran up her arm as she tried to stab him with a knife only to find that his counterpart parried the blow with that awful butterfly sword. Despite her sentinel training, she lacked the field experience to maintain proper form, and her knife fell from her hand. Both of the troll ladies grabbed her and held her, and a tremor of panic gripped her when the male moved toward the civilians. That is, until he spoke.

His throat twisted uncomfortably as he formed a sentence in his bad Common. "Go on, get outta here," he said to the civilians while ripping a wall panel of the port authority open.

While his fellow Darkspear didn't seem to react, the Shatterspear woman glared at him furiously. "What?!"

The handful of night elf civilians entered the wrecked port authority through the hole in the wall and fled, confounding the young sentinel beyond all hell. The Shatterspear woman shared her confusion and released her, slapping the Darkspear man hard on the arm.

"What?" he asked Ariel's assassin indignantly. "We already got enough of them people to interrogate."

"I was tasked with this flight point!" the Shatterspear woman barked angrily. "It be my right to decide how to treat the spoils!"

Perplexed into silence, the young sentinel reacted a second too late when the Shatterspear began to vent her anger. The smaller jungle troll shoved the night elf to the ground and raised the wicked war pick like the tail of a scorpion, growling so much that she spat everywhere. Motivated more by fatigue than fear, the elven sentinel raised her hands.

"I yield!" she said in heavily accented but accurate Zandali.

In a flash, the Darkspear woman grabbed the war pick from her Shatterspear counterpart and confiscated the weapon, leaving the latter to swing a handful of nothing awkwardly. Unlike the raging assassin, the two jungle trolls with more level heads (as well as shaved heads) stared down at the elf.

"How you..." The Darkspear man trailed off into awe before closing his eyes and waving his hands in the air, oblivious to all his wounds. "Wait, wait, stop. We can't kill her."

"Let me go! Don't be tellin me what to do!" the Shatterspear assassin hissed, but the other Darkspear ignored her.

"We got orders, Nehreneh. We can't kill any enemy who lays down their arms."

A fire burned in the Shatterspear tribeswoman named Nehreneh's eyes. "I was tasked with killin their commander!" she said while pointing to herself. "I was given the honor of takin this flight point! Me! Saurfang chose me!"

"She gave up, it be over," the big male said.

"That wasn't what they said when they took MY FAMILY!"

The night elf smartly remained on the ground, but she felt the first pang of fear when she remembered what had happened to the Shatterspear tribe. If anything, the sheer number of them involved in the invasion was a surprising warning sign, and she'd never imagined they'd come back. On instinct, she used her elbow to crab walk toward the Darkspear woman who, while still a murdering war criminal, at least understood the rules of the battlefield.

"Nehreneh, sorry, but I got no sympathy for you," the disapproving man replied calmly in the face of her ire. "The whole Horde weeps for your tribe, but you can't be spreading your tragedy to people who had nothin to do with it. Bein a victim doesn't give you the right to turn into a violator."

A primal sort of rage scraped in Nehreneh's throat, and the feeling of betrayal radiated out of her into the entire area. "She be a NIGHT ELF! They murdered my people and you don't even care!"

"Now slow down, there. How many of her people there be in the world?" the Darkspear woman asked.

"I dunno, what the-"

"A hundred thousand. Maybe a little more. How many participated in the genocide of your tribe? A few dozen."

"Stop, Fon! You didn't gimme no trigger warning!" Nehreneh screeched.

The woman called 'Fon' ignored her and continued. "If you wanna kill a hundred thousand people cause of what, like, not even a hundred of them did, then you not livin up to what the Horde is all about. We saw what you was gonna do to those civilians. You best check yourself, girlfriend."

In spite of the stern talking to, Nehreneh was driven mad by hate. Jumping past Fon, Nehreneh pounced on the unprepared sentinel and proceeded to beat the ever-loving-shit out of her just because.

The two Darkspear tribals stared at each other slack-jawed. Their sister in arms was violating the laws of just war right in front of them, and even after they'd tried to hold her back. There was little else they could do without tempting the bereaved assassin to fight back; the fact that Nehreneh had clearly tried to harm innocent non-combatants spoke volumes about her state of mind.

"Rush, she's gonna seriously hurt that elfie," Fon said casually as if a furious ass beating wasn't taking place at their feet.

The man nodded. "The elfie surrendered...we gotta intervene. What's right be right, what's wrong be wrong." He turned in great discomfort to their fellow troll. "Nehreneh, that be enough," he said to no avail as the madwoman pulled the sentinel out of the fetal position for better leverage.

"Nehreneh, stop, enough," Fon said a little louder. The night elf raised her hands in submission until they dropped limply from the unrelenting punishment, and Fon had seen enough. "You get her legs, I got her arms."

The two of them restrained Nehreneh and lifted the shrieking Shatterspear up off of the battered night elf. Nehreneh thrashed like a cat in a bag, struggling until the two of them put her down and shoved her toward the bridge, which was now empty of life and covered in corpses from both sides.

"Curse you!" she screamed at them both while shaking her blood-stained fists. "Traitors! Cowards!"

"Oh, give it a rest," Fon told her while stepping forward to issue a silent warning with her body language. "You completed your quest. Get back to the High Overlord."

"I curse you both! I curse you! May you suffer as I have!" Nehreneh spat venemously, but she did back off and run away like a temperamental child (who murdered innocent people for a living). Fon watched her leave just to be sure, returning to Rush once they were alone. He was looking down at the battered elf much like he might at a dying bird - sympathetic, but not enough to intervene.

"Damn," Fon mumbled when she saw the elf mouth-breathing and immobile.

Though she couldn't get up, she could speak with much effort. "I failed...my commander," the night elf whispered while looking up at the overcast, late afternoon clouds. "But I saved those...people. I have no...more reason to fight..."

Rush looked at the hundreds upon hundreds of Horde tabards sweeping through the city behind them. The war was over, that much was clear, but he narrowed his eyes at the catapults being wheeled directly into a conquered city. There was likely more work to be done.

"Her wounds won't be fatal if she can get food and water," he told Fon in a distant, clinical matter. He wasn't a distant or clinical person, though, and she could feel the conflict within him. Even though she was usually the cold, logical one, she couldn't bring herself to play that role after the embarrassment that Nehreneh had brought them.

"Only if nobody else finds her," Fon replied while studying his discomfort. "And they gonna find her."

"I know," he sighed.

"We can't just leave her here, Rush. She surrendered."

"I know," he sighed again.

He avoided her gaze. Like many off-tanks, he had a martyr complex, and she knew he'd rather take a hit than see another person hurt. They'd both killed droves of night elves before, but the pitiful sight of the sentinel broken on the ground - and staring up at them to purposefully make eye contact and guilt trip them - drove Fon to tear down his dishonest resistance.

"She's gonna die out here, Rush. And she had the brains to give up, unlike the others." When he didn't reply, she pushed him figuratively and literally. "Tell me the other elfies deserved to die, that be easy. But tell me one that waved the white flag deserves to die? I know you can't do it."

Grimacing at the prospect of a burden from the Alliance, he tried to shake his head, but she knew he couldn't lie to himself for long. "I know," he sighed in defeat.

The catapults reached the beach, and there wasn't much time before the personnel down there noticed them. Fon knelt down and started to remove the sentinel's armor. "Come on, strip one of the corpses inside this building and get her plain civvie clothes."


	6. Dishonor

A light rain had drizzled and then stopped, adding to the gross mixture of mud and blood all over the wrecked city. Red and black tents had already been set up to tend to casualties, and locals who hadn't escaped waited in cages for their eventual debriefing and release. Fon and Rush each led their limping night elf by an arm, pretending to take her prisoner while trying to find a safe route to just let her go. The tattered dress and overcoat of the city's former tailor barely fit the trained fighter's frame, and the excessive bandages and impromptu stitches showing through the tears in the fabric possibly risked giving away their rouse.

Fortunately for them, the only grunts left inside of Lor'Danil proper were too busy pillaging to notice them, and they walked through the streets unnoticed. Only the swarm of goblins swimming in the moonwell noticed them, but the small soldiers had such short attention spans that the trio was soon forgotten.

Fon scanned the north side of Lor'Danil and grunted in disappointment. "There be no easy way out...the clearest way to the wharves be past all the catapults."

The weary sentinel didn't raise her head, but she shifted and made her response known. "Get me under the docks...there are small rowboats down there," she whispered. "I can row south into Ashenvale from a small stream. Your people don't know it."

Without further speech, the two jungle trolls guided her back toward the port authority, leaving the streets and hugging against the ruined huts marking storehouses for the former port authority of Lor'Danil. Few other people could see them, and once they relaxed, their pretend captive began to speak more.

"How could you do this," the night elf whispered while staring at the ground. "You think of yourselves as honorable...how can you partake in this. Your behavior makes no sense."

"Sugar, you best quiet down lest any prying ears be on us."

"How could you...you fought with honor, you adhere to rules of combat. How could you be a part of this? If you know it's wrong to murder a captive, then why be a part of an unprovoked invasion?"

"For your own good, keep quiet now."

"Our city...our beautiful city...our smiling people...our community...all gone. We did nothing to you. We didn't do anything wrong."

"We got our orders and so did you. We tryin to help you outta here, you gotta trust us." When the elf quieted down, Fon sighed and kept her eyes trained on the water as they approached. Blood and broken boat hulls washed up on the shore, and she felt a twinge of anxiety as she hoped they could just dump the elf in a boat, wash their hands of the ordeal, and avoid being ratted out for treason.

Her anxiety shot up tenfold when the catapults creaked.

In disbelief, Rush stared at the war machines, slowing down his pace and thus theirs. "They can't be shooting into the ocean channel," he mumbled.

"Shush, Rush," Fon whispered, though the elf was in between them and could obviously hear whatever she said.

"This don't make sense. The war be over."

"Rush, not now."

Despite every minute spent on dry land being a minute where she was at great risk, the elf tried to stop walking. Fon continued pulling on the elf's arm, but Rush stopped too, his suspicion over what was happening overcoming his denial. "Fon..." he murmured.

The big, innocent eyes of a young person marked the night elf's face, mismatching the facial tattoos which indicated that she was at least a full century old. "It's not over," she gasped, involuntarily struggling in the trolls' arms when the first catapults launched.

Flaming projectiles covered in napalm flew an impossible distance into the air. The channel separating the humongous world tree from the mainland of Kalimdor was wider than the largest rivers, posing a considerable journey even via boat from Lor'Danil. Foul mojo infected the war machines, though, and the projectiles flew just far enough to defy natural laws and cover the distance. Rather than kindling flames, the projectiles exploded, spreading the napalm across untold square meters of the trunk of Teldrassil.

The night elf screamed into the hands of both Darkspear, who'd correctly guessed that they'd need to smother the sound. As if she realized they were sincerely trying to help her, she grabbed their hands and squeezed rather than pulled, subconsciously holding on to whoever was near to her. The second shots from the catapults featured a refined aim and hit the boughs of Teldrassil, setting the top of the world tree ablaze even more quickly and sending several massive, mile-long branches crashing into the ocean.

In spite of her injures, the sentinel continued screaming and shook, jumping up and down as she displayed a strength of emotion unseen among a people stereotyped as being cold. As Fon lowered her to the ground, the elf thrashed and pulled at her own hair, though she didn't remove the hand from her mouth. Rush crouched a few feet away and nervously looked around for witnesses, though there seemed to be none.

The damage was done. Teldrassil went up in flames, pouring more fire and smoke into the sky than a small volcanic eruption. The entire sky lighted up, casting long shadows behind them as seagulls plummeted into the waters like feathery raindrops.

Even if the two of them had been willing to kill each other an hour before, even if they'd fought, even if they represented different sides, the two women instinctively hugged each other as they sat and watched helplessly. The elf clung to the troll desperately, searching for the simple comfort of contact with another living soul as the world tree burned. Like two cart drivers hugging after an accident, or two strangers embracing after surviving a sinking ship, they held on to each other. When the sentinel calmed down enough for Fon to uncover her mouth, she just stared up at the flaming tree with those wide eyes.

Never had Fon witnessed such pain on another mortal being's face. To have watched the night elf die would have been easier, and the blue-haired woman wouldn't stop torturing herself. Forgetting about war and politics for a moment, Fon took the elf's face and turned it away, attempting to lessen the pain and letting the trembling elf cry into her shoulder. She'd never been that close to a member of the Alliance before, but at that moment, all she felt was another person unjustly hurt.

Understanding that she gained nothing from watching Teldrassil's end, the night elf leaned back and pierced Fon'kei with those tortured eyes.

"Why?!"

If she'd blasted Fon in the stomach with a cannonball, the impact still wouldn't have hit as hard. What the hell was she even supposed to say to that? The words 'it wasn't me' crossed her mind, but the sheer assholery of such a statement was too apparent even when she didn't say it out loud. Out of her element, Fon looked to Rush, knowing he had better people skills than her.

He scooted over toward them and hugged them both, more comfortable with contact than Fon was. "We be so sorry...this be wrong, and it wasn't what they told us," he said while petting the hundred year old elf like an upset child. "This be insane. Hateful and insane...they knew nobody would join if they'd told us before the war started. This be wrong...miss, we be so, so sorry."

The elf shook her head and buried her face in her hands, unable to speak. Rush whispered more apologies, but Fon noticed another figure which had been dangerously close to them. Leaving the two of them to kneel on the ground together near the shore, she stood and took a few steps toward another person kneeling in the sand across a gulley full of wood chips and battlefield detritus. Though she paused at first, she knew she had to keep going for the sake of her safety. Just in case, she double checked that she had an extra knife on her belt.

Nehreneh had arrived. Standing next to a frightened raptor, the bereaved assassin stared up at the burning world tree blankly. Hands aplomb at her sides, the woman looked as if she were entirely numb, nearly floating except for her feet being on the ground. Thankfully out of earshot of the mourning elf, Nehreneh didn't even notice when Fon'kei stood next to her. The Darkspear hoped that she wouldn't have to kill a fellow citizen of the Horde for the first time.

All facial muscles limp, Nehreneh slowly turned from the burning tree to the Darkspear and stared right through her. Nothing else registered in her mind, and she stared at Fon like a hollow undead.

"Did you get your revenge?" Fon'kei asked cautiously, prepared to end the other woman if necessary.

Almost lazy in her response, Nehreneh spoke in an uncharacteristically flat tone. "Yeah."

Frustrated by the opaque response, Fon tried to probe the assassin. "How does it feel like?" she asked.

"Nothing," Nehreneh said, surprising nobody but herself. Without a word more, she turned to her raptor at a snail's pace and mounted it.

"Where you going now?" Fon asked, more concerned for her own hide and wondering if Nehreneh had seen them helping the sentinel escape or not.

Nehreneh didn't even look at her as she turned north. "Back to Shatterspear Vale," she said in the voice of a heartless drone.

"What?" Fon said, her hairless eyebrow shooting up. "Nehreneh, that just be ruins now. Nobody lives there. Go back to the Echo Isles - the rest of your tribe has a whole island to yourselves. It not even a refugee camp or anything like that. It be a proper new home for Shatterspear survivors!"

But Nehreneh didn't respond. Truly making good on her claim, she kicked her raptor into a slow trot north, riding further and further away until she disappeared into the hills. What the disturbed woman planned on doing was anybody's guess, but she clearly meant what she said. And just like that, she rode out of their lives and into oblivion.

Once they were alone again, Fon returned to the other side of the stream. Rush was still hugging the night elf, who had at least improved from a wailing mess to a quietly weeping mess. The two of them were speaking cordially even though he and Fon had slain so many of her people. The feeling would have been surreal were they not worried both for their enemy's wellbeing and their own safety.

"It be time," Fon said while squatting and patting the elf on the back. "I wish we could do more for you, but we gotta get you outta here now."

The elf turned to regard her with hazy eyes as Rush helped the woman to stand. Apparently, more words had been exchanged than Fon had expected, though she was aware that she didn't have the best social skills. Rush, on the other hand, had succeeded in comforting the sentinel - at least, as much as could be done for a person who'd just seen her entire world on fire.

"I wish I could hate you," the night elf said as more tears rolled down her cheeks. "Everything would be so easy if I could just say 'you' and put anybody who looks like you in one box. Everything would be so easy if I could just hate...like your friend." The elf pointed with her nose to the footprints of Nehreneh's raptor, sniffling as the two Darkspear helped her to walk beneath the main port authority building.

"She not be our friend...not anymore," Fon said as they approached a few intact rowboats. "And this not be the Horde's war. We, like..."

When she struggled for the most sensitive words, Rush intervened. "We gonna speak out, we swear. We gonna tell the people that this was wrong. You peoples didn't deserve this...we be so sorry."

The three of them stopped at the first wharf, concealed by the wreckage of the port authority hanging over them. As comfortable as Rush felt with feelings, even for a sworn enemy, Fon felt awkward as hell. She didn't know what to say, but the elf did.

"Hate has cursed that woman...as it has cursed your Warchief," the night elf whispered. "Even now, I can feel that curse chewing away at my willpower...but I won't submit so easily. Revenge will only make me like her."

They didn't know if she was referring to Nehreneh or Sylvanas, and their uncertainty was a huge indicator of where their nation was headed. Ral'rush helped the injured elf into the boat while Fon'kei dug up a first aid kit, a sack of coins, and all the rations and water they had on them and gave it to their former enemy. Never would either of them have believed they'd ever break the law in such a fashion, but there they were aiding and abetting the escape of an Alliance soldier with Horde blood on her hands.

Fon helped push the boat off from the wharf. The elf sat down and gripped the oars, a bittersweet look on her bruised face. "Jilletha Moonbough...if you're ever captured, mention my name. I'll try to return the favor."

None of them waved, but they did look at each other until the boat disappeared over the southern horizon, safely away from the concentration of Horde soldiers. As long as she didn't row as far south as the Master's Glaive, she'd be fine.

Their hands washed of treason and their battle fatigue finally making itself felt, the two Darkspear soldiers each put an arm around the other and helped one another slowly trudge back to the first tents they could find, though the mutual support was a little harder on Fon than it was on Rush. Neither of them could stop turning back to look at the burning world tree.

"How many people you think were in there?" Rush asked in shock.

"I...I don't even wanna think about it. Tens of thousands. Not most of their race, but a lot of it."

Rush wouldn't quit, trying so hard to massage the emotional sting of what they were witnessing. "How many do you think evacuated?"

"I dunno," she replied tersely.

"There wasn't enough time. There coulda been thousands still stuck..." His voice trailed off. For a second, Fon thought she'd achieved solace from his mournful observations, but he couldn't stop thinking about it. "This is like losing Camp Taurajo, but times ten."

"I don't even wanna think about that."

"I wonder how many people are gonna die without knowing why."

"I dunno, Rush."

"I wonder how many of them were just kids...no, never mind. This be crazy. I don't even know what to compare this to."

Pained into silence, he stopped talking and nearly stopped walking. Fon stopped as well, and the pair just watched the world tree's image obscured by smoke. So much heat was dumped into the sky that the combination of hot and cold air began to swirl, leaving thin fire tornadoes to twist toward the clouds. Air pressure and atmospheric temperature was warped so much that those same clouds sparked, sending ionized lightning arcing down to the roots and soil around the oceanic tree's bass. The scene of such a massive piece of wood burning, beset by lightning storms and tornadoes of both fire and smoke, formed the most horrific sight either of the two Darkspear had ever seen. The most maniacal Darkmoon Faire storyteller couldn't have concocted such a tale.

"You think Jill's gonna make it?" Fon asked as they both winced from aches they hadn't noticed during the battle itself.

"I dunno," he sighed noncommittally. Before she could push him again, he turned up the seriousness of the conversation. "You think this stuff is gonna get worse?"

"Damn...I really don't wanna think about it. I never thought it would come to this."

They walked into camp, finding a combination of cheer and depression among their comrades. So much had been lost, and so much dissension simmered, that nobody dared discuss the war out loud. The two of them sat in a munitions tent with an overwhelmed Mag'har orc and watched the world tree burn, wondering what would happen to Azeroth without the Legion to play the role of common foe.

 **A/N: thanks to all of you for reading, and thanks to Aranya Ver'Sarn for the inspiration. This felt like a more fitting ending to counterbalance the so very, very unfair end that Sylvanas gave to Delaryn. Let's see how this all plays out in the new expansion.**


End file.
